Gator's Challenge (6 page)

It killed him to leave her behind, killed him knowing that Melanie had to deal with Andrew alone, but he couldn’t tip his hand too soon.

I need a cigarette.
Instead of going down to the lobby, he jabbed a button to go one level down.

His keycard and thumb allowed him to open the door at the end of the hall and take the sturdy metal stairs two at a time. Then three.

Within him, a wildness burned and churned. Restlessness tore at him. Break out. Get free. Can’t.

Fuck.

He slammed into the bar for the outer door and burst out onto the rooftop. He stopped dead in the crisp evening air, arms spread wide, head tilted. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to tame the wildness.

Need to find a quiet fucking place in my mind.
He needed to calm himself. Concentrate on something else.

The dark sky greeted him, along with a roof deck that, while spotted with structures for venting, offered a lot of open space. In an attempt to remain green, they’d actually laid grass down, soft and downy. In an effort to save it from nasty smokers, at the far end, they’d built a gazebo, with benches bolted under it and ashtrays.

Best of all, it was far from cameras. Far from the door he wanted to barrel back through. He wanted to go back and take Melanie from Andrew. And kill the man if he stood in his way. Instead, a long stride brought him to the other end of the roof deck.

A hard jolt as he hit the bench made it creak. Nothing like some rude furniture to remind a guy he would never be a lightweight.

The cigarette emerged from his pocket, and in a moment, his lighter ignited with a dancing flame. He put the cigarette between his lips, clamping the fresh paper covering the filter. He sucked in, tugging air through the tip. A rush of warm smoke flowed into him, and his eyes closed as his head tilted back.

That’s the rush I needed.

Non-smokers never understood the appeal.
All you’re doing is inhaling smoke. Big deal
, they said. The health effects weren’t worth it. All true, and yet, he’d admit to a certain guilty euphoria every time he lit one. He knew smoking was bad for him. Knew he shouldn’t do it. But he did it anyway.

He sucked in that smoke, held it for a second, and exhaled. In and out, the relaxing mantra—a huge part of smoking relaxed him. Tension eased from his stiff frame, and for a moment, he didn’t feel as if he’d explode.

Then his brother Brandon, who’d arrived with his usual stealth, spoke. “Tough day at the office?”

He cocked open an eye. “Aren’t they all? This not smelling thing is really freaking me out. Are you wearing that damned cologne they’re testing again?”

“Eau de nothing? Yeah. They’ve got it working, as you noticed, but it doesn’t last more than a few hours. They’re trying to extend it.”

“That’s not the only thing they’re doing,” Wes muttered. “Did you know they were moving on to testing with kids?”

Not a single twitch of surprise on his brother’s face. “Did Uncle finally tell you?”

“He didn’t have to. I saw it for myself. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“This is the first chance we’ve had to talk since your arrival.”

“Things have gotten so fucked up.”

Brandon snorted. “As if they weren’t already.”

“Oh yeah, well, get this. Andrew’s got his own kids living on the top floor of the lab in that weird freaking nursery he’s got going. His kids, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’d hoped they would escape.” Brandon sighed, and there was a leathery rustle as he shifted in the shadows. “Andrew is toppling into the abyss of madness. I think our uncle is, too.”

Toppling? More like already ankle deep in shit in it. “How’s your mind doing?” Wes asked.

A wry grin pulled at Brandon’s face, crinkling it. “I’m mostly in control of it now, but it’s a battle. There’s a new voice in my head, and he’s a cold fucking bastard. So don’t forget your promise to me.”

As if Wes could considering how Brandon had begged.
If I go mad, you have to kill me before I cause harm.

The things a man had to promise family. Wes looked down rather than at his little brother, a prisoner of Bittech because of what they’d done to him.

“I remember what I said. No need to remind me.” Because he hoped to never have to do it. “Unless you’re trying to tell me something. Is this your way of saying you need a tail-whooping?”

“Anytime, big brother, anytime.”

Neither of them moved, the ritual of words an old one. Wes ground out the cigarette in the mounted ashtray and immediately lit another.

“Those things aren’t good for you,” Brandon said.

“I know. The damned nicotine keeps showing in my urine tests, and I keep my job. Bernie, on the other hand, along with Judd, they weren’t so lucky. None of the other shifter guards have had any luck recently. They’re all gone. Is it me, or are the guards they’re using all human mercenaries for hire now?”

“Saw that, too, did you? I didn’t clue in until we got here. The missing shifter guards are being held in the new holding facility.”

A polite term for they were the newest Bittech test subjects. “What floor are they keeping them on?” Wes asked, the smoke highlighting his words.

“Below ground. And highly secured. I thought for sure after what happened to Merrill I’d wake up in there.”

“But?” Wes pushed, knowing the cameras didn’t extend this far from the stairwell.

Brandon rolled his wide shoulders. “But what? I guess when they found me passed out on the ground they figured I was a victim. No one has said anything about suspecting I helped those others escape or that I turned on Merrill.”

“So you’re in the clear.”

“I guess. For now.”

“I think if they suspected, we wouldn’t be talking now. And who’s left to betray you?” No one, and it was hard for dead bodies to talk. See, Brandon had tried his best to aid some of the captives in fleeing their prison. Key word being tried.

All of the attempts had failed but for one. The only escapee who’d made it out successfully had been Aria, and as soon as she did speak, Bittech shut down and relocated.

“At least that prick Merrill is finally dead,” Brandon announced with a bit of glee.

About time, too. He was another guy who’d taken the Bittech cocktail and found himself with a few loose screws.

“Way I heard it, Constantine got a little peeved when they took his girl from him.” And snapped Merrill’s neck like a twig.

I can’t think of a more deserving punishment.

“The man is a beast.”

No, Constantine was a python with a penchant for hugs. Constantine was also one of the good guys. “And off-limits. We’re damned as it is. Let’s not start adding the death of decent folk to it.”

“I don’t hurt my friends,” Brandon hissed, in better control these days of his rolling S problem. “I’m not fucking crazy.”

“Yet.”

“Yet. So don’t piss me off, or you’ll be first on my shit list.”

“What do you mean first, you prick? Shouldn’t that slot be reserved for Andrew? Or our dear uncle?”

“They’ve only tortured me for a few years. You, on the other hand, started the day I was born.” Brandon smiled, not the human smile he was born with.

“You needed it. I toughened you up. It’s a fucked-up world out there. You gotta be strong to survive it.”

“Some days I’d rather just say screw it.”

“Never give up, brother. Never give up.”

Because, if a man couldn’t believe in redemption, then what was the point of living?

W
ith Wes gone
, Melanie found herself alone with Andrew, suffering a trepidation she’d never felt before around her husband. She couldn’t help but recall his new strength. Would he use it against her?

If he tries, we’ll claw him good.

Except, she still couldn’t seem to manage to draw out her cat.

A cat that now sulked at the reminder she was stuck.

“Alone at last,” Andrew announced with all too much glee. His smile too wide. His teeth too many.

To distract herself from Andrew, and his oddly frightening expression, she glanced around the space. There was certainly a lot of it, and richly appointed, too.

Hardwood floors gleamed from one end to the other, covered in thick shag rugs in varying shades of gray. Strategically placed modern furniture with lots of glass, chrome, and odd art pieces defined the various areas.

A massive bed, which made her stomach roil, took up one entire corner. Across from it sat a matching leather couch and club seat arrangement in front of a huge television screen. Look at that. It sported a game console underneath, but she’d bet it wasn’t there for the boys.

As she kept pivoting to take in details, she couldn’t help but see her husband, a husband who looked markedly different. For one, his face appeared bare. Without his glasses, Andrew’s eyes looked small. Sly. He held himself a tad straighter in his comfortable name-brand athletic pants and matching shirt. No off-the-rack bargain items for him. He was very finicky that way.

Realizing he was the center of her regard, Andrew swept an arm. “Welcome, dear wife, to your new home.”

She shook her head. “I had a home. A nice one that I decorated myself. You know, the one with a room for the boys.” Funny how she used to hate the cookie-cutter neighborhood with its bland sameness, but now missed it something terrible. That house represented normalcy. This place however? While large, it definitely was not designed to be kid, or even wife, friendly. For all intents and purpose, it appeared as a bachelor pad.

The realization worried. She got the impression Andrew had this place tailor-made. If that were the case, then the omissions for his family were intentional, and it meant Andrew no longer felt a need to maintain a pretense of being a family man. She didn’t know what else to conclude because, otherwise, he would have included in the design quarters with an extra bedroom for the kids.

The fact that he never intended to have the boys live here bothered her, and it also brought another realization to the forefront.

If he’s willing to abandon his children, then what will he do to me?

Tread carefully. This one is dangerous.

She didn’t need her feline’s warning to recognize the potential for ugliness in her current situation. She wasn’t dealing with the man she’d married. This new pacing Andrew exuded a weird kind of energy. She could almost see it humming inside him, practically bursting to get out.

The cracked mirror on a far wall made her wonder if his control had slipped already.

He’s going mad.

And Wes left her alone to deal with it.

Some might say give the guy some slack. He’d dropped her off to see her asshat of a husband. She said no way. Real men didn’t deliver a woman to someone with a mad glint in their eye.

Then again, lily-kneed husbands didn’t usually turn into borderline lunatics.

“What’s going on, Andrew?” With no sure option, she chose the direct approach.

“What’s going on? Why, the beginning of a new era, one where we can all be strong.” Andrew flexed his arm, and the muscle in it did a sickly ripple.

“You experimented on yourself?” She couldn’t help a horrified lilt to her query.

“It’s not experimentation if it’s proven beneficial.”

But she cared less about what he’d done to himself than what he planned to do with their sons. “Why have you brought Rory and Tatum here?”

“Can’t a father want to be with his family?” The toothy smile sent a shiver down her spine.

“You’ve never shown an interest before.”

“Because before I never had a use for them. At the time, they were too young.”

“Too young for what?”

The creepy grin widened. “You’ll see.”

Screw not saying anything and staying cool as Wes advised. Wes wasn’t here, and someone threatened her boys.

“No, I don’t see. I don’t understand how you could think it was all right to experiment on children.”

“When it comes to great scientific breakthroughs, risks must be taken.”

“Some of those risks have proven deadly. Look at all those who’ve died.”

“Unfortunate casualties.”

She blinked as he continued to blow off all the things he’d done. The things he planned to do.

I made a mistake in coming here. I won’t be able to reason with him.
She should return to the boys and keep watch over them until she could fabricate a plan for them to escape. Despite Wes’s reassurance, she couldn’t wait. She didn’t dare wait.

Turning on her heel, she headed back to the door, only to hear Andrew snap, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Away from you.”

“You won’t get far without this.”

Whirling, she was just in time to catch the envelope he tossed at her.

“While you’re acting very bitchy, I’ve been a wonderful husband preparing you this wondrous apartment, and look at the bracelet I got you. Go on. Pull it out.”

Fingers trembling, she pulled the tab on the envelope, the rip of paper loud in the silence between them. She shook out a bracelet, heavy gold and metal, embedded with garish bling.

“I spent a fortune on it. Put it on.”

She didn’t want to. It reminded her too much of the shackles keeping her here, in this compound, with this lunatic.

But it might be the key to our escape.

Swallowing back the sour taste in her mouth, she clamped the cold bracelet around her wrist, trying not to wince as it clicked shut.

“Behave and you’ll have free run of most of the compound.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. Now, aren’t you going to come here and thank me for my generosity? Parker thought you’d be too difficult to deal with and wanted to put you in a cage.”

Her eyes widened, and shock kept her from speaking.

Andrew’s face hardened. “But I reminded him that you were my business.
Mine.
I decide what happens to you. Me!”

Given his vehement response, it probably wasn’t a good time to declare she wanted a divorce.

Death would be faster.

And probably more satisfying, except she currently was at a disadvantage. No kitty popping out meant no chance against Andrew.

Thank for the reminder that I’m stuck.
Her kitty went off to pout again.

It just added to the surreal moment. She needed to escape before the scream building within her unleashed.

“I have to go.”

“So soon? Why?”

Would Andrew take offense if she said she needed to get away from him because he’d obviously gotten a bit of loon in whatever drugs he’d taken? “I have to go check on the boys.”

“No need to leave. They’re fine. See?” Andrew aimed a remote at the television, and it blinked from an aquarium scene to a room lit in bright green.

She took a step forward, jaw dropping at the sight. “You’re spying on our kids?”

“I prefer to think of it as keeping an eye on the investment.”

“They’re not lab rats, you bastard. They’re your children.”

He arched a brow. “Are you sure of that?”

He did not. Oh yes he did.

“Are you implying I slept around? You know I was never unfaithful. Those babies might have come from a tube, but they’re still a part of both of us.”

Andrew shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, wife. They’re not mine at all.”

The roaring white noise in her ears didn’t let her hear if he said anything more. What more could he say? He’d just taken her world and turned it upside down.

If Andrew spoke the truth, and the boys weren’t his, then were they even hers? She should have stayed and asked, but she couldn’t. Couldn’t bear to hear more of his vile truths.

Blinded by his words, she somehow stumbled from Andrew’s presence and managed to make her way to the ground floor. She staggered from the elevator, ignoring the curious glances of those waiting to grab it.

Air. I need air.
She bolted for the front doors, bursting out into the crisp evening. She sucked in a heavy lungful, but it didn’t clear the taint from her lungs. All of her being was tainted with Andrew’s revelation. As she leaned against the building outside, she reeled, and her breath came in short, panicked pants.

What if the boys aren’t mine?

Furry slap. Her feline growled.
Those are our cubs.
The boys, no matter what DNA ran in their veins, were Melanie’s in every way that counted. She’d carried them, birthed them, changed their poopy asses, and bandaged their cuts.

They are mine.

Her cat snorted and then took a big, exaggerated sniff. It hit Melanie.

Their scent.
How could she forget the fact that her little tykes smelled feline and were the spitting image of Daryl at that age? How could she have doubted for even a second.
They are my flesh and blood
. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Yet, if Andrew told the truth and he hadn’t contributed the other half, then who provided the male gene to her sons?

Who is their true daddy?

“You shouldn’t be out here.”

A scream got caught in Melanie’s throat, and she pushed against the hard wall at her back. She blinked at the lizard man that drifted to the ground on leathery wings.

What a strange sight. Sure, she’d heard about the flying dinomen plaguing town, but to see one in person? Seeing one also made her wonder,
did I get the sane or crazy lizard?
An answer that would determine her chances for survival.

Because, according to sources, there were two—the one that wouldn’t hesitate to tear a man to pieces and the one who seemed to want to be on their side.

Please don’t let it be the killing lizard.

Wings pulled tight against its back, jutting in a tall peak over the shoulder. The man, with scaled skin and alien features, cocked his head. “You shouldn’t be outside. There are monsters about.”

You don’t say.
An urge to giggle clenched her teeth tight, and taking a deep breath, she managed to mutter, “Are you going to kill me?”

Very human eyes stared from the reptilian face. “Depends. Are you going to try and kill me?”

Given he towered over her and had big teeth and claws? “Probably not.” She remembered enough to know a touch of his claws or tongue and he’d inject enough paralytic poison to incapacitate her.

“Then we both shall live another day. Pity.”

He sounded quite put out about the whole surviving part. “Who are you?”

“Ace. I work here.” As he explained, he tugged the collar around his neck. Ringed and seamless in appearance, she’d heard enough from Renny to know Bittech used them to command the shifters, using pain as their whip.

A crappy thing to do. And yet, despite that, it hadn’t stopped one of those guys from trying to do the right thing.

“Are you the guy who helped Cynthia’s friend, Aria?”

A slight flare of his nostrils and a smidgen of wider eyes. Melanie could see his lips mouth the word no, a word Ace orated aloud. “No. Not me. The bird flew the coop on her own.”

He lied. But why? It took her only another second to remember the cameras. Shit.

I really need to remind myself I’m on a sick version of reality television where my every move and word is watched.

Not saying anything, though, would appear suspicious. Surely some basic discourse was allowed. She couldn’t exactly nod and smile all the freaking time. She started with an obvious question.

“Were you always like this?” The query shamed her almost the moment it left her lips.

How rude of her to assume he suffered a deformity. Perhaps he enjoyed his hybrid shape. Half-man in shape, with two legs and arms. He wore clothing, pants and a shirt, which seemed at odds with other reports that claimed they wore nothing.

“And its balls and man thing are hidden,” Renny confided.

“Then how could you know it’s a male?” Melanie queried as she used nail polish remover on the marker on the wall.

“You can tell.”

Renny proved correct. No mistaking Ace for anything less than male. And he seemed familiar somehow.

He also answered her question before she could recant it.

“Are you asking if I was born a monster?” The lips turned down on the reptilian face, a human mannerism that made him seen less alien. “It doesn’t really matter now, does it? I know what people see when they look at me, and there is nothing I can do to change it.”

Such sadness in those words. “Maybe doctors could…” Her sentence halted.

With a coil of his hind legs, Ace leaped into the air, unfurling mighty wings with a canvas snap. The wings caught an air stream. They filled and let him soar above. With a hard sweep, he shot higher before banking and flying out of sight.

The night returned to its normal silence. The playing of a radio from somewhere, the occasional sharp bark of laughter as some people went about their lives as if they weren’t all fucked.

Like totally fucked.

How am I going to get myself and my babies out of here?

Climb.
There wasn’t a fence that existed she couldn’t scale. Her cat had no doubt they could do it, yet what of her little ones? They couldn’t move into their cat self yet. They were agile, and fearless. However, they would be limited by their age and their bodies.

But I can’t leave without them.

The dilemma burned.
I’m their mother. I’m all they have. I have to fix this.
She wasn’t so desperate, though, as to not realize she needed help.

Daryl would move heaven and earth for her in a second if she asked. Maybe she could get to a phone and call him.

And how will he know where to go?